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How to make your candidate journey travel beyond the destination

When resources are stretched, the opportunity to roll out the red carpet and make a new hire feel welcome may fall by the wayside.

Once the offer is signed, how do you find the time to carry on the great candidate experience that has wooed your enthusiastic new hire? And why is doing this, so very important?

The facts speak for themselves

Bersin by Deloitte tells us that 4% of new employees leave a job after a disastrous first day and 22% of staff turnovers occur in the first 45 days of employment. These losses can add up - they estimate that losing an employee in the first year costs at least three times that employee’s salary (Bersin Deloitte).

Our whitepaper, Candidate Experience in the Expectation Economy discovered that 79% of companies do not provide candidates with information about onboarding processes or the first 6-12 months within the role. Implementing an efficient and inclusive onboarding strategy will not only increase retention, it will also offset further hiring costs and create empowered employees with higher performance rates.

Onboarding new employees is more than just completing paperwork or meeting people. It’s about ensuring new employees have the information, tools and resources they need to effectively meet individual and organisational goals.

Leverage tech to improve onboarding

The truth is that the tools already exist to make everything run more smoothly. Technological advances of all kinds make everyday life easier. Onboarding technologies has improved significnatly over the past 24 months, now balancing the need for post-offer engagement and operational productivity gains.

At Resource Solutions, we onboard our new joiners via a bespoke welcome portal detailing role and team information as well as including training modules that new joiners can complete before their first day so they can hit the ground running on day one.

Enterpise tech platforms such as Workday have also enhanced their onboarding functionality has introduced Workday Onboarding which claims to give your new hires everything they need to hit the ground running. A single digital dashboard allows you to welcome new employees with tailored messages, assign mentors, and host all the required learning videos. Workday Onboarding also gives you the ability to automate new-hire processes and start building talent profiles from day one.

From eLearning simulations to chatbots and AI, when it comes to onboarding and human resources, every tech tool is on the table. The main question is not whether you should automate the onboarding experience, but which part you should automate and which parts should be high touch.

Don’t forget about the human touch

Google’s HR team sends reminders to managers on Sundays, getting them in the right frame of mind to welcome new recruits the next day. There isn’t a strict process of exact steps to follow but it means a personal touch is added to tasks such as matching new hires with a buddy, helping them to build a social network and setting up employee onboarding check-ins once a month for the first six months. All of this mixed in with team activities, ensures Google are always up there with the best onboarding programs around.

Another company getting it right is Twitter, who are really setting the pace when it comes to helping their new starters to spread their wings. Before their employee sits down, they have their email address, a T-shirt, and a bottle of wine waiting. New employee desks are strategically located next to key teammates they will be working with. And on the first day, they have a team breakfast and a tour of the company office, before group training begins.

Make it memorable, and measurable

Getting new employees onboard and ramped-up can require tons of HR time in preparation and onboarding workflows without the right technology together with a people-focused approach.

That’s why it’s important to track how well new hires perform in their first few months. Seeing who continues to improve and who ends up not working out provides not only valuable information about onboarding, but also the recruiting and hiring process. The data will reveal trends that make it easier to make more informed decisions about your entire candidate experience.

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